Brazilian singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Rodrigo Amarante is currently in the early stages of a European tour in support of his album, Cavalo, released this year via London-based Brazilian music label Mais Um Discos. Fifteen of his shows will see him supporting Angel Olsen, with both taking up slots at Incubate tonight, Amarante playing Paradox at 12.15 am. Ahead of that, the label have kindly given us a first look at the video, traversing the mountains of northern Portugal, for ‘Tardei’ – take a look at that above.
While Cavalo is his debut solo full-length, Amarante’s been nothing short of prolific. A founder of Rio band Los Hermanos and a member of Gafieira collective Orquestra Imperial, he’s also collaborated with Devendra Banhart on the latter’s Smokey Rolls Down Thunder Canyon album in 2007, before joining up with The Strokes’ Fabrizio Moretti and Binki Shapiro to form Little Joy, whose self-titled album followed a year later. Cavalo comes after Amarante made a permanent move to Los Angeles and stripped back his arrangements, crystallised on ‘Tardei’s tenderly-intoned vocals and plaintive guitar, laced with the most skeletal of overdubs. Says Amarante of the song: "It is about a trip and the time that it took for it to end. It is sung in retrospective. First it says: ‘It took me a long, long time but I arrived at last.’ Then it says something about how for every goodbye there is a knot, a bead on a rosary that becomes a gift upon arrival, a token of love and of strength and patience. But as the song progresses it is suggested that this is not a retrospective account of an arrival but instead a projection of it, that is sung while the journey is still happening, an invented tool to pass the lonely and uncertain hours of that walk toward what is now revealed unknown."
Take a look at the UK dates below and get hold of the record from the label’s website, where there’s also a full list of the gigs:
SEPTEMBER
Mon 22 – Brudenell Social Club, Leeds
Tue 23 – Gorilla, Manchester
Wed 24 – The Cluny, Newcastle
Thu 25 – Electric Ballroom, London
